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(This article was written by Gladys, our intern at Kingmaker! Her StrengthsFinder® talent themes makes her a Hands-on, People-Centric Bicultural Practitioner who values challenges and provocative thinking. She is passionate about learning the diversity of cultures.)

Hi all! If you haven’t read the subtitles, I’m Gladys and I have been working at Kingmaker as an intern for the past 7 months. I’m writing this article as a reflection of my journey nearing the end of my 8-month internship, and I hope to share my growth with all of you!

Let me start from how I got this job.

Interning in a Strengths-based Company

Nearing the end of my A levels, I was determined to find an internship for myself in order to better prepare myself for not just the workforce, but also to learn more about mass communications, my university course. While sourcing for an internship, I chanced upon Kingmaker’s recruitment poster, which stated “suitable for mass communications and psychology”.

Both mass communications and psychology were in my field of interest, and obviously, being the action-oriented person that I am, I went for it.

Thinking back about it now, it was truly a hilarious experience; the director of the company contacted me for interview the very next day, but because I went for it so brazenly, I only started reading up on Kingmaker on my way for the interview, and I’m pretty sure that my lack of knowledge and understanding was extremely apparent during the interview.

Despite that, I was notified that I was selected to be an intern for Kingmaker. I was overjoyed; afterall, I did fulfil my goal of finding an internship aligned to my potential university courses.

The first day I entered the company, I was ushered urgently to join in a team meeting, and MY GOODNESS, it was INTENSE. The Kingmaker team were having their yearly discussion and review of their performance in the year, and everyone was fiercely contributing to how the team could improve, voicing out the gaps that need to be filled.

Despite the fact that it was LITERALLY my first time there, my colleagues and the directors were all very open and intentional in including me in the conversation; explaining the situation to me and even asking me for my input.

Until today, their warm welcome still holds true so shoutout to KM for such a tight family!

Using my StrengthsFinder Talent Themes

I entered Kingmaker during their “down” period, basically the best time to develop and refine training curricula. As such, my first assignments were to translate collaterals from english to chinese, for a corporate workshop in chinese. Even though the job was a bit tedious, it was a good runway for me to get a better understanding of the company as well as the StrengthsFinder language. And my Input Talent was greatly satisfied – knowing all 34 talent themes during this! Other than the translation work, the bosses made sure I had the opportunity to understudy not just different modules, but also the different styles of training from different trainers.

Thanks to the mass exposure, the learning curve for me as a trainer became less steep. Before I joined Kingmaker, I had no public speaking exposure at all; in Secondary one, I would even blush when the teacher asked me to answer questions in class. Fast forward to today, I had trained classes at different levels, and even spoken in front of cohorts. While I’m still not a natural at public speaking and would still struggle at impromptu speeches, I became much more comfortable standing in front of a crowd, and I am proud of my own development, and I must thank Kingmaker for giving me this opportunity.

Besides training, I also did back-end work, including operational administration and curriculum development.

What do I mean by operational administration? For all the workshops that are conducted, logistics are needed, be it speakers, markers or worksheets. Operational administration simply means that I have to pack and prepare these logistics. While on the surface it might seem like the mundane job that has absolutely no takeaway, it was during the preparing of logistics that I learnt valuable lessons of being detailed and responsible for my projects and logistics. I was also allowed to apply my Restorative Talent, to come up with new and more efficient ways to organize and pack the handouts.

It was also then that I spent long hours talking to my colleagues, bonding and learning to get to know them as individuals (the Individualisation in me is happy!)

Just for fun, here’s a crash course of your trainers in real life:

During my time at Kingmaker, I learnt how to interact with different people, not just as colleagues, but also as friends. Over the course of 8 months, I managed to forge genuine friendships as many of my “senior colleagues” gave me life advices on different things, such as university, finances and even relationship matters.

My bosses, Yeang Cherng and Hee Guan, they taught me a variety of skills, and exposed me to life beyond the education system that I was so used to. They taught me how to manage something that I wasn’t used to having– free time. As a JC kid, I never had free time and was constantly racing to finish as much of my never ending pile of practice papers as possible. Coming into Kingmaker, however, I was introduced to the concept of having your own identity and hobbies, be it volleyball, dance, or even simply just watching dramas.

Besides the invaluable life lessons that I was bestowed upon, I also learnt many things in terms of skills (Yay to Learner!)

For example, as previously mentioned, I was involved in curriculum development. That meant that I was given the liberty to conduct my own research and produce classroom content that were used to teach students.

I am very lucky to have the directors of the company to train and coach me personally. They taught me how my choice of words could affect perceptions, and how to choose the most suitable words. They taught me how to organise my content such that information were in bite-size pieces which people could digest. They taught me how to make content interesting, such that I could still retain attention even while delivering content-heavy modules.

One of my personal favorites is Multiple Intelligence. We were to plan classroom activities to help students learn about their multiple intelligence experientially, and we came up with various activities for the differing Multiple Intelligences. The reason why it was so memorable was because I saw my hard work being used and implemented in the classrooms, and seeing the students enjoying the activities gave me a sense of achievement that could not be replaced by anything else in the world.

As an intern, I would be the supposedly lowliest life-form in many other companies. However, in KM, I was given so much opportunity to grow and develop myself. The entire company, be it the directors or my senior colleagues, were concerned over my well-being and growth as an individual. The Strengths-based culture of the KM family really helped me to harness on my talents, and grow and develop as a person.

“The traffic light has 3 different colours–green, yellow, and red. Everyone knows what the red and green are for, but many people often neglect the yellow. While the yellow seemingly does nothing, it is actually the key to ensuring the “go” becoming a “stop” smoothly.”

(This article was written by Gladys, our intern at Kingmaker! Her StrengthsFinder® talent themes makes her a Hands-on, People-Centric Bicultural Practitioner who values challenges and provocative thinking. She is passionate about learning the diversity of cultures.)

This is an open letter to my past self, and a letter of advice for anyone who’s going through a similar phase that I went through. This is a reminder to my future self, that I’m perfectly good the way I am, and that I don’t have to envy other people.

“Sometimes, I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” — Thomas Schell Sr., Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Most people are like me. As a teenager, male or female alike, I always feel like I’m not good enough. It always feels as though people’s expectations of me are so high, so unattainable and so unrealistic. They think that I’m great, capable and talented. But I know that I’m not. And I mean it.

Meanwhile there’s always the other girls in class. They’re smart, pretty and popular. They can effortlessly come up with creative ideas that I could never think of. They can effortlessly make people like them and charm strangers they’ve never met before in the matter of seconds.

But me? I was never like that, and I felt that I never will be. It feels horrible to know that even when you try your hardest, you’ll still lose out to people that are just naturally……talented.

And because of that, I envied people.

After I got to know StrengthsFinder, however, I’ve started to understand a bit more about why they could do things I couldn’t. The “popular” girls probably had the talent theme Woo, that’s why they were able to charm people so naturally and effortlessly. The “creative” girls probably had the talent theme Ideation, that’s why they were able to constantly come up with such amazing and innovative ideas.

Even though I understood all of that, I still struggled to see that I was talented.

I mean look at me! I was plain. My Woo stands at 22, my Ideation at 23, and all the other talent themes that I thought was “ideal” were 20 and below (my supporting or lesser talent themes).

I was at the phase of my teenage life where I was constantly doubting myself, envying others and thinking that I was unable to achieve what they could because I wasn’t like them. I didn’t have those talent themes.

It was an arduous journey filled with self-doubt and anxiety.

But guess what?

I overcame it all.

Even though I didn’t have the talent themes I’ve envied, but my talent themes were able to compensate for my lesser themes and weakness (most of the time). I thought I couldn’t achieve the things I wanted but, I could! And I did so in a kick-ass Gladys style that was copyrighted and original!

Ideation, for example. Even though I was unable to pull out ideas from thin air and perform magic, I was able to play on my own strengths, Input (my number 5 talent theme), and re-invent old ideas to become brand new ideas that value-added to discussion the way I wanted it to!

If I could go back in time, I would want to tell myself, and everyone going through the same phase as me, to have more confidence in yourself. You can do it; and all you need to do, is to pluck up that one second of courage and JUST DO IT. It’s fine even if you don’t have the supposed talent themes to help. Your own uniqueness will step in to help.

I mean, it’s been *inserts your age* years, and you’re still doing fine in life!

Pluck that little courage, and see that you can do it too! Don’t underestimate your own abilities, you’re good.

(This article was written by Cai Ling, our intern at Kingmaker! Her StrengthsFinder® talent themes (Communication | Woo | Includer | Positivity | Connectedness) makes her a people person who enjoys mobilizing a fun-filled community with purpose and ownership. She enjoys meeting new people and is passionate about broadening their potential and building upon that.)

I think about my life a lot.

Kierkegaard once said that “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward”.

I think there is truth in retracting your memories, connecting the dots to understand why things seem the way they are now. Looking back, discovering my strengths has brought light to why I am able to find my passion in life.

If I had to describe how I lived my life before University, I will admit that I was risk averse. I navigated close to the planned pathways by the society. School libraries were my hideout from the humid afternoons, warm summer evenings were dedicated to my co-curricular activities and late nights were spent studying hard to ensure an eventual entrance to tertiary education. My teenage years, unlike some of my peers, have been wonderfully unblemished. For that, I am thankful.

It was only a matter of time before I found myself lost after trudging through the monotony of the education system for so many years. After A levels ended, I was lost and shrouded with a lot of “what’s next?” that I do not have answers for. It didn’t take me long to realize that I became a bystander to my own life, spectator to my own show.

I understood that the first step has to be finding a full time job, to be someone other than a conformist to the education system. There is no better time to do that before University starts.

What I did not know was that my strengths were manifesting themselves in ways that I could not appreciate back then.

While I was searching for a part time job to supplement my allowance, I found myself in the sales industry. I soon plunged into a world of salesmanship and meeting new people everyday. Meeting new people has never been an issue for me. In fact, I find joy in exerting social initiative during sales. I exhibited social energy and social ease which helped in my sales. Thus, I soon earned the title of being the top salesperson for the month. What I did not notice was that my top 2 talent themes, communication and woo, have come to life.

My life after A levels was finally strung together seamlessly. I was able to take a breather from the studying, surrounded by a team of motivated colleagues, and was supposedly living my life to my fullest! But I did not feel whole. Sales was too individualistic for my liking and I sought after a bigger purpose in life. I tendered my resignation soon after and embarked on another journey of self discovery.

As someone with positivity, the glass will always be half full to me. After I quit my sales job, I took on some part time jobs. This routine of mine continued even after University started. Given the flexibility in my timetable, my afternoons are always lined up with part time work for some extra income to ease my parents’ burden. While it is inevitable for me to feel worn out at times, the optimist in me will always serve as the impetus to keep myself going. Tired from working? It’s okay, I am honing my soft skills for my future career. Rejected my exchange offer due to high cost? It’s okay, I will have the opportunity to travel the world when I start working full time. For every negative thought that appeared in my mind, I opened up a pathway of hope in me. Cynics may reject my energy and label it as naivety but as someone with strong positivity talent, I want to channel my positivity to others. I aspire to open up pathways of possibilities for others, and lift the spirits of those in need.

My strengths unfolded overtime which eventually pointed me to a clear direction. By the start of my university education, I possessed a strong desire to work with youths. Being one myself, I recognize the potential latent in everyone. I want to be in the position to uncover and broaden that potential in youths. Coupled with the optimist in me, I became even more certain about making a difference to our education industry.

One incident that remained close to my heart at the start of my internship in Kingmaker has to be an encounter with *John, a Secondary 2 student. John was easily one of the more eager and enthusiastic student in his class. It was no surprise that he volunteered to help us pack our logistics once the workshop ended. While we were chatting away, John shared that he felt misunderstood in class because his friends viewed him as a teacher’s pet.

“No one likes me at all”, he told us.

I felt his dejection right in my gut and I struggled to find the right words to comfort him with the last few minutes I have with the class. I wished I had more time with him to help him out. At that point in time, a seed of determination was planted in my heart. I was reaffirmed that embarking on the education industry is the right thing to do as it can empower me to be that invisible hand that gives comfort to youths like John. Thinking back, I now understand why I didn’t feel right in the sales industry. One of my top 5 talent themes, connectedness, steered me to find a strong purpose beyond my humdrum life. I’m glad I found one now.

I was and still am a work in progress. There wasn’t any tumultuous moment that changed my life drastically,

but getting in touch with my strengths through strengthsfinder has guided me towards the passion in my life.

Kingmaker is the perfect place for me to kickstart my entire journey in the education industry and I anticipate for more to come.

(This article was written by Jasmine, our Education Consultant at Kingmaker Leadership. She believes that the greatest gift in leadership is to be able to mentor the next generations of like-minded people, to develop them to their greatest potential. She do so by seeing the strengths of them, and coach them on ways they could best leverage on their strengths to achieve personal excellence.)

This week I had a chance to have a short conversation over lunch with our Senior Education Consultant Shawn, and as we were discussing how to further reach out to youths in Singapore, the fundamental question of “Why StrengthsFinder?” popped into my head, and I’m very grateful to hear insights from Shawn, a veteran in the education and enrichment industry. As strengths consultants in StrengthsTransform, we constantly have to ask ourselves how to better enrich lives from young, an opportunity that we ourselves might have missed back in our schooling days.

Q: Why StrengthsFinder?

A: One of the most common learning outcomes that many school teachers have when planning for enrichment programmes has always been getting students to be more self-aware and to help them find out their strengths and weaknesses.

Students generally learn more about themselves after going through a programme, but I realised that a lot of students are not good at accurately evaluating themselves, they don’t know what they don’t know, and they assume that everyone is just as good.

StrengthsFinder is the best profiling tool I know of that accurately assesses a person’s talent.

I personally experienced the usefulness of the StrengthsFinder Profile when I went down to various schools to conduct the profiling for the students.

After the 177 questions profiling (yes, very long and arduous process, but I guarantee you that gaining awareness of what you can contribute uniquely and discovering your strengths in a worthy journey), students are excited over their Top 5 Strengths.

When we share with them what their Top 5 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes mean and how they show up in their lives, some students were amazed by just how well the talent themes describe them (just like “fortune telling”). I especially love the moments when students’ eyes lit up and the connection we form when students think that

“Hey this person understands me.”

Many times, when teachers saw that happening, they will tell me,

“Wow, you have only just seen the students and its seems like you know them in person already.”

That is no magic nor fortune telling. It is exactly the accuracy of this profiling tool and its insight report documenting great and deep understanding of the different talent themes.

And all it takes is 30-45mins of profiling, tapping on over 50 years of validated research and design of StrengthsFinder. (click HEREto read through Gallup’s Technical Report)

Q: So, what got you started on bringing StrengthsFinder to Schools?

A: When I first started out in the training industry, I was passionate in programmes that helps student build confidence, improve self-esteem, develop their leadership capabilities and achieve personal effectiveness.

I can relate to the challenges youth faced as I went through them before. As a youth, I would observe people around me and model after my friends who were “cool” and have the charming “X-factor”(aka the popular kid in school). There were upsides and downsides to this approach as it shapes my character and personality, but the underlying feeling is always that you are at most “second best” or not as good as others.

When I was introduced to StrengthsFinder and coached by Mr Tan Hee Guan,Gallup Certified Coach, my immediate thought was how great it can be to bring these to students today, so they can learn to be the “best version” of who they can be.

With the advancement of media and technology, video games that are constantly fighting for their attention, a strengths-based approach gives me a glimpse of how to engage and prepare them for the real world.

It takes a village to raise a child.

Apart from bringing StrengthsFinder to students, we also conduct Strengths Programme to Parents and Educators. I believe the it is on all of us to lead our youths to realize their fullest potential. I believe that gaining insights to what motivate youths rather than focusing on their weaknesses could help educators and even parents connect to the youths better and be one step closer to engaging them positively.

Q: What’s Next for StrengthsFinder?

A: We have trained in 6 different Countries, 40 Schools and over 10,000 students and educators and I look forward to having more schools onboard with us to StrengthsTransform our youths. I am very privileged to be working with a team of passionate and dedicated coaches (yes, the people in orange). We will continue to innovate and design high quality and engaging experiential strengths-based programmes for the future leaders of our generation.

End Note

After this short and casual conversation with Shawn, I reflected back into my schooling days. I too was lost and unconfident in what I could do. Just like Shawn, I constantly thought that just by mimicking the kids that people usually hang out with, I could well fit in. I was quiet, I enjoyed intellectual discussions (intellection) and I like to read widely and deeply (learnerand input) (these aren’t really the traits you would associated with a popular kid right?). Yet, these are what made me unique, these are my natural way of thinking, feeling and behaving. If only I was aware of who I am, I could have embrace my uniqueness and even further developed my talents, rather than hiding behind who I was.

Being unique is beautiful. Knowing it early increases the chance and opportunity that you will achieve campus excellence and beyond.

Start Today!

Her StrengthsFinder® talent themes of Empathy, Developer, Restorative, Individualization and Relator define her a genuine and effective people person who intuitively sees diversity and potential in people of every walk. Zhi Hui is also passionate about Social Science, especially in areas pertaining to people management, personal growth and leadership development.

Here is her article, written from the fresh perspective of a young person empowered by StrengthsFinder. She shares snippets from her family life, through the Top 5 Talent Themes of her mum!)

This Mother’s Day, I would like to dedicate an article to my #1 supporter, #1 friend and most importantly, my #1 drinking partner (yes, my mum and I bond over Baileys!).

In this article, I write about how my mum’s talent themes manifest in her parenting and show up in her life as a uniquely wonderful individual as well. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about some snippets from our family life, and think about what talent themes show up in YOUR mum’s life as well!

Dealing with Difficult Children Like Us: Mum’s Strategic Talent Theme

Parenting is an uphill task, and dealing with the “strawberry generation” like us doesn’t make it any easier. My mum is a no-curfews-given, go-buy-whatever-you-want, go-experience-drinking-in-a-bar kind of mum. She strongly believes that behind this autonomy, we learn how to take charge of our lives a little better, and mature a little faster. I guess this is a desired outcome many parents want to achieve, only that my mum does things a little differently from the rest.

Back in the day, whenever we made a trip to the toy store, my mum would buy us almost every toy we set our eyes on. If you think we ended up having too many toys for our own good, it was actually the converse. Instead of being deprived, which an old adage describes as “deprivation (being) the best motivation”, our mum gave us much autonomy as children. We ended up being de-sensitised to the idea of buying toys, and would only get things that we really needed.

I guess that’s my mum’s special strategy behind the autonomy she has given us. Special perspective you might say, yet it was certainly pretty effective in dealing with us.

Achiever Talent in Mum: Hayday Specialist

She is a Hayday Specialist, currently standing at #1 on her Facebook friend list and a whopping level 165!!! One time she made my brothers and I download the app so that she could get some tomatoes.

not the real ones, but the virtual ones.

To her disappointment, we did not download the game because we found the game a little pointless. Oops. Jokes aside, she takes a lot of pride when she completes her personal checklist for the day at work. If need be, she will dedicate some time on Saturday mornings to check off the last item on her checklist. Every morning, she reaches her office at 7am just so she can get more things done (and free Wi-Fi for Hayday too).

Weekend Happenings: My Arranger Mum

Weekends are jam-packed for our family. Each day, we get quite a lot of things done, all thanks to our conductor mum who never fails to make sure our schedules are in place. If I were to give you a rough feel of our schedules, we have around 4 tuition classes and 4 enrichment classes in total per day on weekends. To complicate things further, some of these programme timings are staggered, which makes it even more difficult to coordinate and ensure everyone is at the right place at the right time.

My mum makes use of her iPad to jot down every single activity my brothers and I have each day. Sometimes our schedules change last minute but somehow, things turn out smooth and fine. Our whereabouts are accounted for, and our meals and transport taken care of. What I really look forward to is family dinner at night. Despite our busy schedules, we all make it a point to gather for dinner as a family. As hectic our days can get, my mum ensures there is always time for family.

Discipline Talent, Family Habits: Eating and Sleeping

Despite the autonomy my mum gives my brothers and I, she is pretty strict on two things in particular: food and sleep. That is when her Discipline talent theme comes in handy. Every other day, we are expected to go home for dinner, unless we have a valid reason not to do so. She creates a dinner routine for our family, where we share about our day’s happenings while having dinner together. Every day, we are expected to be in bed by 10pm and wake up the next day by 6am.

Effectively, we get 8 hours of sleep each day. Unfinished homework? We are not allowed to burn the midnight oil. You can wake up at 5am the next day, but by 10pm, strictly all lights out.

“Popular Kid”: Mum’s Woo Talent!

My mum can strike a conversation with almost anybody she sees, especially with other parents waiting outside the tuition centre for their own children. Initiating conversations and breaking the ice is something my mum can so naturally do. It is definitely not an exaggeration when I say that my mum is closer to parents than my brothers are to their friends. That is the power of her Woo talent theme. My brothers and I like to joke about how my mum is a “popular kid”, but just a little older, maybe a “popular auntie”.

End Note

Don’t get me wrong, I wrote this article not so much to boast about what an awesome mum I have.

which is a true fact, but not the main point of all this!

What I want to really bring across is that one talent theme can manifest in many different ways in different people’s lives. It’s really up to us to appreciate the wonderful blend of how these talent themes manifest and shape individual lives and real families – and, for all of us embrace these talents and our family members wholeheartedly!

Now that I’ve shared about my mum and her talent themes – talent themes of hers that have shaped our family culture and values in real and wonderful ways – what about you? Which of the 34 talent themes in Clifton StrengthsFinder do YOU see in YOUR mum? I’m sure your mum is awesome and talented in amazing ways too!